


30 Days of Johnlockary

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Series: Tumblr ficlets - Johnlockary [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8424070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: A series of ficlets based on the challenge 30 Days of Sherlock .





	1. Shopping

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Life We Choose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7955230) by [MissDavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis/pseuds/MissDavis). 



When Sherlock said he wanted to go to an antiques and flea market, John immediately offered to accompany him without even asking why. He was sure it was about a case, what else could Sherlock Holmes possibly want on a flea market?  
What he didn’t consider was Sherlock’s habit of collecting things. John had always wondered where the clutter in 221b came from - the skull, the anatomy drawings, dead bats and other obscurities. After following Sherlock around from one antiques seller to the next for about an hour, he knew.

“Impressive!” Sherlock uttered, holding up a dangerously sharp looking pair of scissors he’d discovered on one of the stands. It was made of silver and decorated with vine ornaments. “How much is it?”

The seller named a ridiculously high price, and Sherlock negotiated patiently until they agreed on a more reasonable amount of money. Sherlock paid, and John held a bag open so he could drop the scissors into it. Not least because the bags were getting rather heavy, John was starting to feel a bit weary.

So far, the detective had bought: a desk ink stand, a beaded and embroidered lamp, a collection of cut-glass perfume bottles, a diamond-studded shaving razor, a table mirror, a doll with a cloth body and a porcelain head, a dressing screen, a wooden horse pull toy, a framed realistic drawing of a bird, an hourglass, and a replica of a fox skull. Many of the things were real antiques from the 19th century, and not exactly cheap. 

“I wouldn’t have thought anything could be worse than Christmas shopping with Mary,” John complained two hours later, now carrying four large bags full of antiques and oddities. “Listen, Sherlock, I know you’re having fun and I don’t want to complain, but my arms are starting to hurt. Can we go home?”

“Just one more thing, John,” Sherlock said, and purchased another random obscure item John couldn’t even identify. He noticed with a sense of malicious glee that the detective himself was groaning under the weight of all the stuff he had bought. “That’s it, now we can leave.”

Ten minutes later, John sank into the backseat of a cab with a sigh of relief.

“Sherlock, sometimes I’m glad you decided not to move in with me and Mary,“ he remarked. “Anyway, we’ll have to go back to Baker Street together now before I go home. You can’t carry all this rubbish up the stairs on your own. I’ll have to help -”

“No, John, not to Baker Street.” Sherlock gave him a sideways glance over the bags piled up on the backseat between them. “I appreciate your helpfulness, but none of these things are for me.”

“What? You mean -?”

“They’re presents for you and Mary. Because, unlike a certain Dr. Watson, I didn’t forget your wedding anniversary.”

John, who was completely baffled, and also definitely had forgotten the anniversary, felt that the only gesture that could properly express how he felt in that moment was shaking his head, so he did that.

“Your rooms are so empty, John. Mary complains to me all the time. You need some decoration, just like in 221b. And you still have the chance to impress your wife by pretending it was your idea. We’ll start with the sitting room.”

Surprisingly, putting all of the clutter up on the cupboards and shelves at home didn’t take much more than half an hour. Sherlock seemed to have an exact plan where and how each item had to be placed.

“It’s perfect,” Mary praised him. “Thank you, Sherlock!”

The detective grinned and let her hug and kiss him.

“What do you think, John?” Sherlock asked and turned to him.

John still wasn’t sure about the strangely ornamented silvery things and the skulls, but at some point while they’d carried the bags into the house, he’d realized that this was important to Sherlock. It wasn’t really about the anniversary, he just wanted their rooms to look a little like his own. Not only because he wanted to feel at home when he visited John and Mary, but also as a reminder, because he wanted to be present in their minds even when he wasn’t there.

“Well, it’s… It’s…”

And it wasn’t even that bad, after all. Just like in 221b, it looked chaotic, but at the same time somehow visually pleasing. In fact, John felt much more at home now that it was decorated like this.

“It’s alright, I guess.”


	2. Gardening

The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson

15th June

A Green Place in the City

Today I learned something new about Sherlock. Isn’t it nice when the people you love still manage to surprise you all the time? And of course there was a case, too. But first I have to tell you a little backstory.

Two years ago, Sherlock got a plant from Mrs. Hudson as a birthday present. It was a so called spider plant, a very popular houseplant because it’s so easy to grow. It also cleans the air, and Mrs. Hudson hoped it would help stop the flat from smelling like a chemistry lab.   
Three weeks later, I came into the flat and saw that the plant had turned all brown and was practically dead. Which made me laugh, because we have these plants at home, too, and they usually survive even under the worst conditions. 

“Knowledge of botany: nil,” I said to Sherlock - and in that moment, I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Mycroft, who’d just stepped into the flat without anyone noticing.

“Oh, I do believe my brother has _some_ knowledge of botany,” he remarked. “But only as far as it’s useful to him. He knows everything about poisons, and how opium is produced, for example. Don’t you, Sherlock? But he has absolutely no talent for any kind of practical gardening. Mummy would rather let me take care of her flowers and vegetables than him.”

The image of Mycroft Holmes in garden gloves harvesting vegetables almost made me laugh again. But I’m sure he can do that if he has to - at least better than Sherlock, because Mycroft is better than Sherlock at everything. That’s a fact Sherlock hates, and I felt sorry for making fun of him in front of his brother.   
It later turned out Sherlock had watered the plant with chemicals just to see what would happen, and that was what killed it.   
Anyway, back to the present and on to the case.

A young woman named Sandra was found dead in the Thames. The first result of the police investigation was that she’d been strangled, and the murderer had tried to get rid of the corpse in the river. Fortunately, her phone was still working. One of the last messages she’d received was from someone named Sam. It said, “Come to the meadow in the Garden.”   
This made Sam our first suspect, of course, and we thought the “meadow in the Garden” could have been the crime scene. If we knew where it was, we could probably find more clues there, and perhaps even witnesses. So we started searching all the “gardens” in London that we could think of - Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, and so on. But of course it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and we couldn’t find anything.

In the meantime, Lestrade and Donovan talked to the victim’s friends and family. It turned out Sandra had grown up under difficult circumstances, she’d been treated for drug addiction several times, and she’d been homeless until recently.   
As soon as Sherlock heard that, he said he knew which “Garden” the message on Sandra’s phone was referring to. He took us to a place I’d never seen before.

At the Southbank Centre, on the rooftop of Queen Elizabeth Hall, there’s a garden. It was planned by designers, but built and planted and taken care of by people who’d suffered homelessness. It was supposed to help them find a job and give them a new perspective. Sandra had been one of those people, and Sherlock was right - the Rooftop Garden was where she’d been killed. The scene of the crime was a wildflower meadow. We even found a couple of witnesses who had seen Sandra there with a red-haired man. Through Sherlock’s homeless network, a red-haired man with the nickname Sam was easily identified. Lestrade immediately sent some of his colleagues to arrest him. We also found some cigarette butts at the crime scene, and the DNA on them will probably convict the murderer. 

When there was nothing left for Sherlock, Mary and me to do, we decided to take a walk through the Roof Garden. It’s really a beautiful place. Sherlock showed us around, and he confessed that he’d come to the Garden quite often in the past year. Sunny and Jill from the homeless network had started working there, and Sherlock had asked them for advice and lessons in gardening. They showed us a small patch of flowers and vegetables that he’d been allowed to create. It was thriving, and in a much better condition than the spider plant I mentioned in the beginning, so obviously he’s learned a lot.

In the end, Sherlock led us to a beehive on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall. That’s right, they have bees up there! Sherlock told us he’d also taken lessons in beekeeping. 

All three of us put on hats and veils, and Sherlock gave Mary and me a little demonstration of how to take care of bees. You should have seen him! Apart from solving crimes, I don’t think he’s ever been so invested in something. Within half an hour, he told us more about bees than most people will learn in their entire lives. He actually looked happy.   
We took photos, I chatted with some of the people who work in the garden (they have some interesting stories to tell!), and Sherlock and Mary kissed _*_ in front of the beehive. In order to do that, they had to take off their veils, of course, and they were both stung in the face by the bees. Everyone laughed at that.

It was a lovely afternoon! However, I still can’t believe Sherlock went to the trouble of taking gardening lessons just to become better than his brother for once.

_*Yes, they kissed, and yes, I’m okay with that. I love them both. We’re polyamorous. Perhaps I’ll talk more about that in one of my next entries._


	3. Gifts

_How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with?  
_

That was what Molly Hooper had said when she’d slapped his face after his positive drug test. 

_The beautiful gifts._

What was that supposed to mean? How was he gifted?

On the sofa, where he’d been lying for… he didn’t remember how long, Sherlock turned around to stare at the wall on the other side of the room. Perhaps an answer could be found in the pattern of the wallpaper. If not, he could still shoot the wall - but then again, the gun was in one of the kitchen drawers. Too far away.

Sherlock was convinced he didn’t have any kind of talent. Even his intellect was nothing but a burden, turning his mind into a machine that would never stop running. In comparison to Mycroft, for example, Sherlock wasn’t even very clever. In the presence of ordinary people, he felt better about himself, but mostly because they were impressed by his tricks. His friends saw the illusion of a great detective, that was why they looked up to him, and he enjoyed their attention and admiration. 

Was that what Molly had meant - that he was talented as an impostor?  
No, it couldn’t be that. No one would call that a “beautiful gift”.

He turned around again to hide his face in the sofa cushions. _Beautiful…_ Molly was attracted to Sherlock, so perhaps she’d just been talking about his butt or something. He was about to delete her words from his mind palace, when his phone buzzed and interrupted his thought process. He picked it up from the floor next to the sofa, and frowned at a text from John.

_Answer your phone! Lestrade wants to talk to you. Another body was found in a swimming pool, the same pattern as last week. Looks like a serial killer! JW_

_I’m not leaving the house for anything less than a 12.5 serial killer,_ Sherlock texted back. His new rating scale for serial killers was something he hadn’t discussed with John yet, but he thought John should know him well enough by now to understand what he meant.

He dropped the phone, and closed his eyes. John would leave him alone. If he had sent a text like that to Mary, he would have had to be more careful. She would have stopped reading after _I’m not leaving the house,_ and immediately come to check on him. 

A knock on the door woke Sherlock not even twenty minutes later. When he didn’t answer, the door was carefully pushed open in a way only an ex-assassin would do it. It dawned on him that he’d underestimated John once again - he must have felt that something was wrong and shown the text to Mary.   
A second later, she was standing next to him, going through a routine of checking his health - pulse, forehead, eyes, breathing, heartbeat. 

“Alright,” she said afterwards, sounding a little out of breath. “You’re alright.”

Sherlock wasn’t so sure if that was true, but he didn’t feel like he had the energy to explain. Mary went to open the curtains, and then the windows. He growled and tried to hide his face again as sunlight and fresh air touched his skin. 

“Come on, Sherlock. Get up. Molly and Lestrade and a corpse are waiting for you in the morgue. And you can have this.” 

She produced something from a carrier bag and held it under Sherlock’s nose. He took a few moments to identify the item as a paper bag from a bakery. His stomach growled audibly as he noticed the scent of fresh rolls, cake, and possibly mince pie. He was on his feet and grabbing for the bag before he knew it. Mary chuckled and kept holding it out of his reach.

“Have a bath and put on some decent clothes first. I’ll set the table for you in the meantime, so you can have a proper meal.”

“I thought I’m supposed to solve a case? You know digestion slows me down.”

“You’ll be even slower if your blood sugar drops too low.”

That was a statement he couldn’t argue with. Conceding defeat, he headed for his room, but then he turned around again.

“Mary, do you think I have a gift? Any kind of talent?”

He didn’t expect her to come running towards him, much less her spontaneous embrace. He wondered how she could like him now, how she could stand holding him close and nuzzling his neck, sweaty and scruffy as he was. 

“You _are_ a gift,” she whispered. “Now go and change your clothes.”


	4. Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is quite dark, contains a BDSM scene and mentions of PTSD (the rating should be M for this one).

Fifteen minutes? Thirty? Over an hour?  
John wasn’t sure how long he’d been kneeling on the floor. Being blindfolded and in pain always made him lose track of time.  
His position was uncomfortable, especially with his bad knee, and the rope was hurting his wrists and ankles. He was helpless, exposed, and completely alone.

Not actually alone, of course - Sherlock was monitoring him from the other room - but the illusion was perfect.

Was it even true, was it real? He could have dreamed up all those adventures with the strange detective, while still being held captive in a dark cellar somewhere in Afghanistan. There was no difference now, not from John’s point of view. It was exactly how he needed it, the way he could tame his own demons. The point of this game wasn’t the pain, or the humiliation, or even the sexual aspect. It was about feeling alive.

 

He remembered the confusion and worry in his wife’s eyes when he brought it up for the first time.

“You survived something like that, and now you want to go back to it?”

“Only in my mind. I can control it.”

 

He flinched when the door behind him was pushed open and someone came into the room.  
Heavy footsteps on the hard floor.  
A gloved hand pushed his head down a little, and something cold was pressed against the back of his neck. It felt like a kiss at first, but that was not what it was.

 

“Are you sure you want this?” She had asked again and again. “I can do it, but are you sure?”

“Yes, I am sure. Call me sick and twisted.”

“Only if you want me to.”

 

He held his breath and counted the seconds under the cold kiss of the gun.

Eight, nine, ten, eleven.

“Do you want me to let you go?”

He didn’t want to, not yet, but the question was part of the game, so he nodded. His heart was racing.  
He got a blow to the head as a response, just hard enough to hurt.

“You didn’t really think I would, did you?”

He shook his head, and the gun was taken away.  
Soon, she would come back to take the blindfold from his eyes and untie him. The rest would happen in bed, or on the floor if Sherlock was impatient. They would be back together, there would be light and softness and real human kisses.  
But for now, he was alone again.


	5. Work

It was a cold night. Rough wind came in through the door with John and Sherlock as they stumbled inside. They were out of breath from running and had a strange gleam in their eyes.

“We did it, Mary! We solved the case.”

John came up to her with a smile, and cupped her cheek as if he was going to kiss her, but instead he just stared into her eyes as if he got lost in them. There was a seriousness behind his joy about the night’s success, something that hadn’t been there before he’d left.

“We almost died tonight,” Sherlock sang cheerfully as if it was something worth celebrating. He twirled Mary like a dance partner away from John, and bent down to kiss her cheek. “Killer tried to shoot us from the top of a building. Missed John’s head by a millimetre, and another bullet would’ve hit me in the heart if John hadn’t tackled me to the ground.”

“Must have been fun,” Mary said, and gave John a warning look. The weird cheerfulness was just Sherlock’s way of dealing with that kind of experience, there was no need to get angry with him.

“Someone shot the killer from the roof of the house opposite,” Sherlock went on excitedly. “I was sure the worst would happen, but then there was a shot from the other direction, and it was over! Nobody knows who it was. There were no traces.”

“Well, at least the case is solved and the killer’s dead. He’ll never harm anyone again. And you’re both at home now, safe and warm.” Mary smiled up at Sherlock. “Dinner is going to be delivered in about ten minutes.”

“Great. I’m starving,” John said. “You ordered for all of us? How could you know we would be home at this time?”

“Oh, just a guess,” Mary answered. “If you hadn’t come, I would’ve eaten everything myself out of frustration, and left nothing for you.”

She winked at her husband to make sure he didn’t take her words too seriously, but the thought still seemed to bother him.

“It’s difficult for you, isn’t it? Staying at home while Sherlock and I go to work and have fun solving crimes.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Don’t worry, John. I’m absolutely fine with everything the way it is. Someone has to do the dirty work.”

John laughed at that.

“My perfect wife.”

A hint of doubt stayed on his face, but he stopped asking questions at least.

As John went to get rid of his winter coat and change into something comfortable, Sherlock remained in the doorway between the hall and the sitting room.

“Does it really not bother you, staying at home?”

He stared at Mary with his piercing grey eyes.

“No, it doesn’t,” she replied.

“It must be so boring.”

“Well, I’m not shooting the walls, am I?”

Mary was accustomed to lying, but even she started to sweat under the detective’s scrutiny. Her cheeks had to be red from the cold outside, it could be visible through her makeup, and surely there were other clues if one knew what to look for.

However, he turned away without saying another word. He removed his scarf and made his way to the bathroom.

She suspected that he knew the truth, but she wasn’t sure. She wondered how long it would take for John to notice something.

Now that she was alone in the room, she opened the drawer again. She touched the gun inside it and pushed it a little further to the back, to make sure it looked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time.  
After shutting the drawer and checking twice if anything looked suspicious, she took out her phone to text Molly.

 _Thank you so much for babysitting Leah while I was away! You did a great job. She’s still sound asleep. MW_  
  
_It was fun! She’s so sweet. I love her. I’ll come and take care of her whenever you need me. Whenever they need you. xx MH_


	6. Hair

At first, listening to the professor explaining the details of his work was quite interesting. The man was an expert on hair, and he frequently analysed hair samples from crime scenes for the police. In this case, he’d helped Sherlock by identifying dog hair from the trousers of a murdered woman as the hair of a corgi and a Pomeranian. This was an important clue, because the lady had owned a corgi, but neither herself nor anyone in her circle of friends had a Pomeranian.

After a while, however, the professor’s scientific rant about follicles and DNA and different hair structures stopped making sense to John. It was worse than listening to Sherlock when he talked about his tobacco ash. The detective himself was still listening intently. Once again, John seemed to have stumbled into the world of geniuses whose thoughts ordinary mortals couldn’t follow. 

After a while, he stopped listening and started to think about other things instead. The nice weather and how much he wanted to be outside, the amount of time they’d spent on this case already, how desperately he needed some physical affection, just a little handholding, or perhaps a kiss…

“… don’t you think, Dr. Watson?”

The professor stared at him over the rim of his glasses, waiting for an answer to a question John hadn’t heard, and that was the moment when John decided he’d had enough for today.

“I think a kiss from my handsome boyfriend would be really great right now,” he said, and couldn’t suppress a smirk at the professor’s shocked expression.

“I… But…” The scientist stuttered, obviously unable to process John’s reply. “I thought you were married!”

“Yes, um, excuse me,” John said, and picked up his jacket from the desk. “Where’s the loo?”

Sherlock pointed towards a door at the other side of the room.

“Isn’t he?” John heard the professor say to Sherlock as John walked away. “Married?”

Five minutes later, when John came out of the bathroom, Sherlock was already waiting in front of the door.

“Oh, thank God. I thought I’d have to go back and listen to his hair-splitting for another hour.”

“Don’t worry, I was fed up with it as well,” Sherlock said with a grin.

“But you were still listening to him,” John replied. “You seemed quite fascinated with his findings.”

“I wasn’t listening, I’m just better than you at pretending to be listening.”

“You never listen to people if they’re boring. Normally, you just tell them they’re wasting your time, and then you walk away.” 

“Yes, normally,” Sherlock conceded. “But we might need his help again. I had to act nice.”

”You can be nice to me now,” John said. “I still want my kiss.”

With a smile, Sherlock leaned in and kissed him. Despite his usually cold and arrogant behaviour, Sherlock was a romantic at heart, and he gave the sweetest and softest kisses, accentuated with whispered confessions of love. John could never get enough of them.

“Can I tell you my latest scientific discovery?” Sherlock asked afterwards.

John nodded.

“The most handsome boyfriend in the world is actually you.” 

“Ha, that’s a great discovery. You should publish that,” John laughed. “I won’t argue with it. Though I have to say, you definitely have the better hair.” 

“Oh, just stop talking about hair _forever.”_


	7. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a fantasy/magic AU.

“Apprentice Philip! We’re out of lizard teeth.”

Carefully, the wizard placed the empty glass back on the shelf. His hands, permanently stained from years and years of working with potions and other dubious substances, had been nervous and unsteady lately. He couldn’t afford breaking another one of his valuable utensils. Muttering something between a curse and a steady hands spell, he took a different glass from the shelf, opened its lid and inhaled the scent of dried seaweed. On the other side of the room, his flasks and pots full of colourful liquids were bubbling gently on the simmer.

“I can get some new ones from the market witch tomorrow.” Apprentice Philip panted as he came running in from the front garden. His face was still soot-black from his latest failed experiment. It would take a long time for him to learn to create even something as simple as a healing elixir. Sherlock would never understand why the king had insisted on assigning him such a stupid and inept apprentice.

“Forget it.” He sighed. Philip would get the wrong kind of teeth anyway. Last time, he’d mistaken rat eyes for frog spawn. “The seaweed will do, I guess.”

“What are you cooking?” Philip asked.

“Nothing special,” Sherlock said. “Nothing special at all. Just trying to improve the taste of the power and protection potion, so the knights won’t spit it in my face next time.”

“Really?”

The wizard glanced up from his collection of magic ingredients and noticed with concern the unusual doubt on his apprentice’s face.

“Since when is it any of your business what I do?”

“Since I’m your apprentice,” Philip replied.

Sherlock laughed sarcastically.

“Stop acting as if you understood a single thing about magic, Philip.” He turned up the collar of his cloak, and pointed at one of the boiling liquids. “If you really need to know, I’m trying to create an antidote to the love potion.”

“An antidote.”

“Yes, exactly. Just in case someone wants to get rid of… of the feelings the love potion caused them to have.”

 _“Someone?”_ Philip ignored the wizard’s threatening stare and stepped closer. “Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?”

“Myself? No, of course not. Wizards are immune to potions. What gave you the idea?”

“I think…” Philip began, scratching his singed beard. “I think it happened when the king asked you to make a love potion for the prince. Prince John is the heir to the throne, because the king doesn’t have any other relatives left, and the king wants him to marry Princess Mary. She’s an upstart of impure blood, and she used to fight in battles with the knights. Most people think she has no right to a place in the royal society, but for some reason, the king is convinced she’s a good catch. Prince John didn’t even want to talk to her, and I remember you were specifically asked to brew a potion strong enough to make anyone fall in love with anyone, regardless of who they were or what they thought of themselves. So you arranged a meeting for John and Mary, and poured your strongest love potion over them. And I suppose you forgot to wear your gloves, because you always do - you carry them around even in warm weather, but you constantly forget to put them on when you’re working with dangerous substances.”

“I never thought you could be this observant, Philip.”

“Wait, wait, I wasn’t finished! So you weren’t wearing your gloves, and some of the potion spilled onto your own hands, and it made you fall in love with the princess, too.”

“Nonsense.”

Sherlock snorted theatrically, but once apprentice Philip thought he was onto something, it wasn’t that easy to distract him.

“Are you afraid your heart is going to break?”

“Apprentice, stop it.” Sherlock held up his hand to interrupt Philip. “I don’t want to hear anything about this story in this house ever again. I don’t know how you managed to make all of that up in your otherwise empty little head, but I assure you, none of it is true. A rumor like that could make me fall into disfavour with King George, and you know what it would mean for you and me if I lost my position at court. Go back outside and collect some more rotten blackberries, you’re going to need them for your studies tonight. Or at least for the calming drink you’ll need to make me after everything has exploded.”

“Gregory.”

“Hm?”

“The king’s name is Gregory,” Philip said as he walked back to the door. On the front step, he turned around once more, not even trying to hide the worry and fear in his eyes.

“Your heart is not really going to break, is it?”

Sherlock shook his head and looked away, biting back tears he hadn’t expected to come.  
After the door fell shut, he sat down in his favourite chair with his knees drawn up. The apprentice was wrong. Things were so much worse.

Sherlock Holmes was the most powerful wizard in the ten kingdoms. The love potion he’d created had been so strong, it could literally make anyone love anyone, and not even wizards were immune to it. It had spilled onto his skin, and under the curse of his own spell, he’d fallen hopelessly in love with both the Prince and the Princess at the same time.  
Acting on these feelings would neither be tolerated under the king’s law, nor in any other kingdom. And even if it was, which prince or princess in the world would want to love a quirky, odd man who spent his days cooking potions and collecting the wings of dead bats? Knowing there wasn’t any chance for his wishes to come true, the wizard’s mind was slowly consumed by despair.  
He could probably create an antidote if he kept working on it, but it was taking too long. All of his work was only a waste of time now.

Sherlock had been invited by the king to Prince John’s wedding. He would watch the Prince and his new wife make their vows to each other. He would wish with all his soul that he could be included, that he could make a vow to them, too. He would play his magic violin for their dance in the royal ballroom, and the piece would end with the sound of his heart shattering into a thousand pieces.  
It was common knowledge that all wizards’ hearts were made of glass. It was the reason why they usually kept to themselves and avoided too much contact with other people. If a wizard felt too much pain, his heart could break. He could live hundreds of years without even aging significantly, but if his heart was broken, he died.

There was nothing he could do, Sherlock thought. He’d brought this on himself. His mind was not made to process all these emotions, and he couldn’t cope with the pain. He didn’t think he would survive more than a few days from now. If he hurried up a little, he could still finish his memoirs, instead of wasting his time on the useless antidotes. His most important spells and curses and potion recipes should probably be written down as well. Perhaps even a few instructions for his useless apprentice, though he wasn’t quite sure if Philip could read.  
There was not much time left. He picked up a feather and ink from the table and started to write.  
An hour later, he realized that all he’d put on the paper was a sketch of the bride in her wedding dress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a sequel to this story that I uploaded separately [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8748403).


	8. Cuddles

“Ow, Mary, your feet are cold!” John hissed, but he made no move to get away from her. Instead, he held her even tighter to keep them both warm.

“We’re in a hotel room during a blizzard in the middle of winter, and the heating doesn’t work,” Mary said. “Of course my feet are cold.”

“You didn’t have to tuck them between my legs like that though,” John replied, his voice muffled by the thick duvet they were cuddled up in.

They fell silent for a while, enjoying their little island of warmth. Mary could have fallen asleep, but her thoughts kept going back to the man in the other room.

“John, have you thought about Sherlock?”

“No, why? He’s in his room, isn’t he? He should try to get some rest, after the case and all the turmoil of the past few days.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s there, trying to sleep,” Mary said. “But can you imagine how cold he must be?”

John refused to get up, but he agreed that it was cruel to leave Sherlock alone in his room, “probably freezing to death”, as Mary put it. 

It was so cold she had to put on her winter coat just for the short way to Sherlock’s room.

Sherlock was wearing his coat as well, and a warm jumper underneath that looked almost like he was trying to imitate John’s clothing style. He hadn’t been in bed, much less trying to sleep. After opening the door, he resumed pacing up and down, and Mary couldn’t tell if it was out of restlessness or just to stay warm. Outside the storm was howling. When she glanced through the windows, all she could see was snow.

“Sherlock, do you still have some tea left? We have a camping stove in our room, but we’ve run out of tea bags.”

“Over there.”

Sherlock pointed at a small basket on the shelf filled with tea bags that the hotel staff had left there for the guest.

“You can join us in our room if you want,” Mary suggested. “It’s warmer when you’re not on your own.”

“I doubt the presence of two more people will increase the room temperature significantly,” Sherlock scoffed. “Especially in this draughty hut they call a hotel.”

“Oh, but our bed is significantly warmer than yours.”

Mary winked at him, and regretted it immediately. Flirting with him was not her intention in this moment, and she didn’t want to give him the wrong ideas. Sherlock gave her a stern, wary look.

“Come on, you can bring your blankets, we can get cozy and have a nice hot cup of tea together.”

“Cozy.” Sherlock spat out the word as if it was an insult, but he did follow Mary into her and John’s room.

Ten minutes later, they all sat on the bed, wrapped in the blankets, with hot steaming mugs of tea in their hands.  
It felt strange, having a third person - a third adult - in their bed. Mary enjoyed the rare opportunity to be close to Sherlock, feeling his warmth, the fabric of his clothes, and the steam from his teacup.

“A bit of rum in the tea would be great,” John broke the silence between them. “If we had any.”

He glanced at Sherlock over his mug.

“It’s funny, you know,” he said. “People have always thought we would end up in bed together, and now here we are.”

He shook his head and laughed, but it wasn’t exactly a humorous laugh. There was a little sarcasm and melancholy to it. Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

“What’s stopping us, anyway?” John added.

Saying these things out loud was very unusual for him, especially in front of Sherlock. Mary would have been shocked if she hadn’t known John had repressed feelings for him, if they hadn’t discussed this before, in nervous whispers late at night. Now John sounded defiant, trying to get a reaction out of Sherlock.

“I could just kiss you right now.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Sherlock said.

For a moment, the two men stared at each other as if they were about to start a fight.

“Mary?” John said without taking his eyes off Sherlock.

“Well, I’m certainly not stopping you,” Mary heard herself say in a casual voice, as if she was talking about the weather.

Holding her breath, she waited for something to happen, for some kind of escalation, but the moment passed. Sherlock and John simultaneously looked away, leaving their staring contest unresolved.  
Just when Mary started to think it was over, Sherlock suddenly threw himself at John, and the two men started kissing as if their lives depended on it. Some of the tea spilled on the bedsheets before they managed to put their mugs on the floor, never breaking the kiss.

It was rough. As if he wanted revenge for being taken by surprise like that, John tried to wrestle Sherlock down and get on top of him. Sherlock struggled against it, but at the same time he kept holding on to John, clearly not wanting him to stop.

Mary briefly wondered if she was supposed to intervene. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind and settled for enjoying the show.

A few breathless moments later, Sherlock and John broke apart, panting and dishevelled.  
Mary felt a rush of excitement like a teenager. In her mind, she was already going through possible positions and contemplating the logistics of a threesome… but then she realized they wouldn’t go that far. Sherlock lay motionless on his back while John was pinning him down. They looked at each other and nodded as if they had come to an agreement. John let go of Sherlock, allowing the detective to roll away from him. For a second, it looked as if Sherlock would jump up and run away, but then he stayed where he was. He looked confused and unhappy.

“So… No sex, then?” Mary teased. John raised his eyebrows, but he said nothing.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Sherlock apologized. “I shouldn’t be in your bed.”

He sat up and pushed the blankets aside. Mary put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“It’s fine, don’t panic,” she said. “We invited you, we wanted you to be here, and we still do. Don’t we, John?”

“Yes.” John coughed and blinked a couple of times like someone who had just been woken up from a dream. “It’s not… You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“And about the sex, I was joking,” Mary continued. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for. I don’t know if I’m ready, and I’m pretty sure John is not.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock said after a short silence. He glanced down at Mary’s hand that was still holding on to his sleeve. “Then what do you think we should do?”

Mary shrugged.

“Just try to stay warm, I guess.”

It took a little while until they’d all found comfortable positions to lie next to each other and hide from the cold under the blankets. They needed to have a conversation about what had just happened - but not now, Mary thought. Not tonight.  
To the sound of John’s breathing and Sherlock’s heartbeat, she drifted off to sleep.


End file.
